Proving there really is a blog for everything, I recently stumbled across a website called The Greatest 21 Days. The site focuses on minor league baseball cards, and more specifically, “1990 CMC and Pro Cards minor league baseball card sets, and what happened to each of the players it contained.” And no, I’m not making that up.

Anyway, I found the site when performing a basic Google blog search for “Oklahoma City.” Back in October, they profiled the 1990 Oklahoma City 89ers. Here are a couple of notable players from the team:

Juan Gonzalez

I know that baseball is not the most popular sport in Oklahoma, but for the millennials out there, Juan Gonzalez was one of the great run producers of the 1990s. A Texas Ranger great, he won two MVP awards, smashed 434 home runs, and not surprisingly, was accused of injecting a lot of steroids into his mustache.

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Ron Washington

Spending most of his MLB career as a weak hitting journeyman, Ron Washington is the current skipper for the Texas Rangers. As their manager, he’s led the franchise to three America League West titles, several epic World Series collapses, and has snorted a bunch of cocaine with his mustache.

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John Hoover

Okay, I’ve never heard of this guy, but doesn’t he kind of look like Tulsa World OU Beat Writer John Hoover with a mustache?

Seriously, are they related? Do they know each other? Is John Hoover a Highlander? Who knows.

Anyway, this whole thing got me thinking, can we get rid of the Redhawks and bring back the Oklahoma City 89ers? I know I’m partial to 1980’s pop culture and nostalgia, but who wouldn’t want this change? Just look at the mascots. Currently, we have a couple of inbred mouthbreathers named Cooper and Ruby. They replaced Rowdy the Redhawk who died in a freak drowning accident in the Bricktown Canal:

Compare those Oh-Facers to the 89ers most notable mascots, Robo Niner and Abner 89er:

It’s not even close, is it? The 89ers mascots are much better. And just look at the logos. Those 89er icons screamed low-budget, 1980s minor league baseball. The current Redhawks logo screams “COCK!”

Finally, the name 89er is 89-times better than Redhawk. I’ve lived in Oklahoma my entire life and have never seen a redhawk. Granted, I haven’t seen an 89er either, but at least I dressed up as one for an 89er Day parade in the 5th grade.

Hopefully someone at the Redhawks who is smart reads this and brings up the idea in a meeting. At the very least, have an 89ers throwback day next season with old uniforms, mascots and the WKY Diamond Girls:

Comments

I miss Robo Niner so much! My best childhood memories are from All Sports Stadium and I would fly back to OKC in a heartbeat (I currently live in New Orleans) if the Redhawks did an 89er throwback game. Bring back Robo Niner!

They actually did this a few years ago. In 2007, every Sunday game was a throwback uni game. They alternated the last version of the 89ers and the Oklahoma City Indians from the 1940s-50s. (Though you didn’t really miss much.)

There were also a lot of little league teams named 89ers. The one we played against had two future OU players, Jarod Freeman and Brandon Moss. When the triple-A 89ers changed their name, the little league team didn’t follow suit. This put us in the awkward position of getting our asses beat by a team that didn’t exist!

I loved the baseball helmets of ice cream product. I always wanted a Cubs helmet, I usually ended up with an Orioles one instead. We would sit on the hill in left field, when a homerun or foul ball was hit there OKC’s largest game of “smear the queer” would break out. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

The dogpiles on “the hill”
in high school being about to get beer and even smoke in the box seats.
The old beer man dancing to “Minnie the Moocher” on top of the dugout.
Odibe McDowell, Jeff kunkel, and Steve Balboni
The old Dugout car parked near the entrance.
Hearing the stories from the Diamond Girls as to which player they hooked up with at Yucatan liquor stand the night before.